Live In Balance.

Our Dimensional Growth

From birth on, we grow and develop in multiple ways and on multiple levels. The most obvious may be our physical growth, maturation, and aging, but equally prominent is our cognitive development. This is most obvious and occurs with incredible speed from infancy through young adulthood, but our brain’s plasticity and ability to learn continues to develop throughout our adult lives.

Some people seem to reach a point in their cognitive development where they stop actively growing. However, with intention, desire, and awareness, we can grow in our mental process until we die, barring the misfortune of severe brain injury or disease.

Our emotional development and spiritual development are equally important, but perhaps less obvious. Emotionally, we mature from a natural self-focus into our capacity for empathy, love, and compassion for others. We grow from the need for immediate gratification into an ability to invest in long-term goals and we mature into the ability to delay gratification.

Spiritually, we come to recognize our place in a larger world and the existence of forces profoundly greater than ourselves. We recognize and acknowledge the mysterious nature of this experience we call life. We learn to understand and respect the truth that everything is in process and notice how these processes play out in the unfolding of all things, including ourselves. For some, this takes the form of something we may call God and for others, the mystery of existence requires no sense of a Higher Being, just consciousness and awe.

The process of aging can either stymie or accelerate any or all of these forms of development. Women who remain profoundly alive into old age can find themselves evolving from age-ing to sage-ing. As we grow, we may find ourselves achieving high levels of self-acceptance, peace, and an attitude of loving-kindness toward all beings, including ourselves. Let’s talk about ourselves as dimensional beings.

What areas of development have been most prominent in your life?

How has becoming older interacted with the development of your personal talents and gifts? Have some of them been stymied? Has growth in some areas been accelerated?

Talk in your own words about how you experience yourself as a dimensional being, whatever that term means to you.

Have you had teachers—either formal teachers, family, friends or everyday people—who have influenced your growth as a dimensional woman?

What does it mean to you to move from age-ing to sage-ing? Where do you feel you are in this process?